Three Kingdoms: I am not Liu Bian

Chapter 264 Zhang Yan is incompetent, causing the loss of troops and disgrace to the country. It seems I must ask Dong Zhuo to come out of seclusion!

April 20th, the first year of the Hanxing era.

The governors of various prefectures reported that the prefectures and counties along the Yellow River were hit by strong winds on April 12th, and that hailstones the size of chicken eggs fell from the sky even though it was early summer.

People in all counties died from hail, and wheat seedlings were also damaged by hail and strong winds.

Liu Bian witnessed this situation firsthand; many civilians in Luoyang City were also injured and bled from their heads.

Fortunately, the Han Dynasty has now condemned the "theory of interaction between Heaven and man" as heresy. Although it will take time to completely reverse this concept that has been in place for two or three hundred years, at least no one will use strong winds and hail to criticize Emperor Liu Bian or attack some of his new policies.

For example, the policy of simple burial.

If the theory of the interaction between Heaven and man had not been condemned as heresy so early on, well, I'm afraid some Confucian scholars would have jumped out now to say that this emperor has angered Heaven and the people, and that the strong winds and hail are Heaven's warnings and punishments for him. Some might even have suggested "punishing Tian Fen and purging the court of corrupt officials."

Of course, it was unlikely that the emperor would rebel, but many people would definitely suggest that he execute Tian Fen to appease Heaven's anger.

However, this strong wind and hail caused local governors to discover another problem in advance when they were assessing the damage to the wheat seedlings—the stem borer!
Zhong Yan, the magistrate of Chang'an, submitted a memorial to the emperor, stating that the head of Duyou Pavilion, which was under the jurisdiction of Chang'an County, discovered a far greater number of stem borer larvae than usual when he cut open the stubble of wheat seedlings that had been killed by hail.

Rice stem borers are frequent and insidious, causing cumulative losses rather than the sudden and massive damage caused by locusts. They are almost inevitable. However, many varieties of rice stem borers only harm rice and not winter wheat, and they do not like to eat winter wheat, so their destructive power on winter wheat is limited.

For the Han people, whose main crop north of the Yellow River is winter wheat rather than rice, the damage caused by the rice stem borer is limited.

On the contrary, the harm of locust plagues lies in their suddenness and intensity, their wide range of damage and strong migratory nature, and most importantly, locusts' favorite food is winter wheat.

The government would require the heads of each village and post station to supervise the local people to plow the fields in winter to freeze the overwintering insect pupae in the soil. The people would also voluntarily remove weeds and clear the field ridges to reduce the habitat of pests.

In areas where crops ripen more than once a year, the government will also require the people to leave the land fallow for a period of time, and will not allow the people to secretly rotate planting of beans or millet.

This is not simply a concern about soil fertility; it also destroys the growth environment of locust and stem borer eggs and larvae, killing a large number of pest larvae. Furthermore, in many areas where paddy fields are cultivated, people are required to drain the water and plow the fields to kill the insect eggs by exposing them to the sun.

However, stem borers are ultimately difficult to eradicate; the best that can be done is to minimize the damage.

Liu Bian had Zhong Yan's memorial delivered to the Ministry of Agriculture, so that the Ministry could devise countermeasures. He also warned all counties and states to be vigilant against rice borers, especially in rice-growing areas such as Jingzhou, Yangzhou, eastern Qingxu, and Yizhou. He ordered the prefects of each county to send officials to the countryside to inspect and warn the people about the rice borers.

After all, at this moment, the areas in the north that grow winter wheat are either harvesting or waiting to harvest, and the harvest will be completed by early May at the latest.

Therefore, even if a locust plague were to break out, it would not be to the point that most hardworking people would be unable to afford food.

The Han people were indeed lucky; only some areas in the Sanfu region suffered damage from stem borers that destroyed a lot of immature winter wheat stalks, so the losses were minimal.

However, in early June, a large number of rice stem borers were discovered in many rice-growing areas in the Sanfu region, which are located in areas with dense water networks.

However, Liu Bian did not have any good way to get rid of these pests. Before the invention of pesticides, the only methods were poultry catching and manual catching. Poultry was relatively common in the Han Dynasty, and ducks were also raised in paddy fields.

As poultry is not considered a "three-animal" animal (animals, livestock, and poultry), its price is actually quite affordable. In fact, the price of various poultry eggs is much higher than that of meat.

Even with the capture of poultry, there was still a trend of locust infestation. The officials of the Ministry of Agriculture racked their brains but could not come up with a better solution. In the end, someone suggested that fires at night would attract insects, so they ordered the people to light bonfires by the fields at night to attract the larvae of pests, and ordered a reduction in the capture of birds, frogs and other animals that prey on pests.

However, these methods are not even a temporary solution. People have long been aware of these issues, but there are no specific laws or regulations governing them. Even the spiders that spin webs in the fields, because their webs have insect-repelling effects, are rarely cleaned up by the people.

However, Chai Yu, the Imperial Attendant, designed a sticky trap for catching pests on Liu Bian's advice. It was inexpensive to make, using tung oil and the cheapest jute cloth to create the trap. The trap was hung in the fields to catch locust larvae and could be popularized in various counties.

Furthermore, Liu Bian ordered that people in all counties and prefectures should raise fish fry and ducks in paddy fields, and that the government could lend money to people at no interest rate to buy poultry and fish fry.

Fish fry are very cheap. In the Central Plains, a basket of fish costs only twenty or thirty coins. In areas with dense water networks, a basket of fish costs just over ten coins.

Chickens and ducks usually cost about 40 and 70 coins each, respectively.

The rice-duck-fish symbiotic paddy field system, while not very effective at killing locusts, is quite effective at killing stem borers and other pests, and can also serve as an extra source of income for farmers who cultivate paddy fields.

Subsequently, Liu Bian ordered all the fish in the fish weir platform in the East Garden, which was built by Liu Hong five years earlier, and the fish in the Hongchi Pond in the Royal Forest Garden in Yanshi County, to be caught and distributed to ordinary people in the Sanfu region who owned paddy fields. The pheasants, wild ducks and other birds in the various Royal Forest Gardens were also sold to the people at extremely low prices.

After doing all this, Liu Bian rubbed his temples wearily.

He had done all he could. In the end, a small-scale peasant society could not escape the fatal weakness of relying on the weather for its livelihood. All that was left was to leave it to the elusive "fate" of the universe.

However, before he could even reflect on his feelings, an urgent memorial from Zhang Yan, the governor of Ji Province, arrived at the Lecheng Hall. It turned out to be a memorial to plead guilty.

Liu Bian was initially puzzled: a memorial to plead guilty?
Could it be that the Wuhuan people, who have submitted to the central government, have rebelled and invaded and plundered northern Ji Province?
Liu Bian unfolded the memorial, his eyes quickly scanning the words. After reading only a few lines, his face suddenly turned ashen, and his fingers gripping the memorial so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

Before he could finish reading it, an uncontrollable rage surged up his head, and he slammed the memorial to the ground with a heavy thud.

"waste!"

Liu Bian's roar resounded like thunder in the hall. The emperor's wrath naturally caused fear among the people. Even though most of the officials of the Attendant-in-Ordinary were former officials of the emperor's former residence, they all lowered their heads and dealt with their affairs, afraid of offending the emperor. However, they couldn't help but glance at the furious emperor out of the corner of their eyes.

Although the emperor occasionally loses his temper, such thunderous rage is truly rare.

The last time he was so enraged seemed to be when the Southern Xiongnu of Bingzhou, the Qiang and Hu of Liangzhou, and Zhang Ju and Zhang Chun of Taishan County rebelled almost simultaneously.

To publicly insult a subject as "useless" like this is unprecedented.

However, no one dared to step forward to inquire. The emperor's majesty grew stronger every day, and who would dare to approach him easily when he was in a fit of rage?
Of the four Attendants of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, Jia Xu, who was most on good terms with the Emperor, has not yet returned to Luoyang.

Originally, Jia Xu and Guo Sheng had almost finished surveying and inspecting the land in the royal gardens of the Three Rivers region and were preparing to return to Luoyang. However, as the emperor issued an edict to distribute all the fish from Hongchi in Yanshi County and Yuliangtai in Luoyang East Garden to the people suffering from the locust plague in the Three Auxiliary Regions, Jia Xu was sent out again to inspect the actual disaster situation in the Three Auxiliary Regions as an imperial envoy.

Cheng Yu was inspecting the border defenses in Youzhou and was preparing to instigate conflict between several tribal leaders in the central, eastern, and western parts of the Xianbei.

Dong Zhao was recently sent by the emperor to inspect Jingzhou, while Zhong Yao was sent to inspect Yangzhou.

As attendants to the emperor, their role was naturally to advise the emperor, and Liu Bian could also use these attendants as his eyes and ears.

The Embroidered-Robe Envoys could only provide partial information; they ultimately lacked the vision to address many political issues. Only the Attendants-in-Ordinary could have that insight.

In the end, Xu Jing, the eldest among the officials of the Imperial Secretariat, silently stepped forward, bent down and picked up the memorial from the ground. However, he did not read the contents of the memorial, but instead asked the emperor directly, "What is the cause of this overwhelming anger in the country? I am willing to share the burden of the country." "Wenxiu," Liu Bian took a deep breath, calmed his turbulent emotions, and said, "You read the contents of this memorial on my behalf."

Xu Jing nodded, his gaze falling on the contents of the memorial in his hand. Before he could speak, his brows furrowed almost imperceptibly, and his heart was filled with turmoil.

The Black Mountain bandits... how could they be so rampant!

The term "Black Mountain Bandits" was a derogatory term used by the imperial court to refer to the remnants of the Black Mountain Army, a branch of the Yellow Turban Rebellion that had fled into the Taihang Mountains.

The Black Mountain Army's most glorious moment was probably when they besieged Guan Yu, who was stationed in Handan.

Then Guan Yu contemptuously called him a scoundrel who sold his head for a mark, and beheaded him. Guan Yu also beheaded a man named Zhang Baiqi, and presented Zhang Baiqi's white horse, which was completely white without a single blemish, to Liu Bian, who was then the crown prince.

Unfortunately, Chu Feiyan, the second-in-command of the Black Mountain Army, led eight thousand remnants and tens of thousands of elderly, weak, women and children into the Taihang Mountains. Due to the heavy snow that blocked the mountains at that time, it was possible to forcibly pursue them into the forests, but it would cause serious losses and would not be worth the effort. Therefore, Liu Bian did not order his soldiers to pursue them.

As the second-in-command and Zhang Niujiao's sworn brother, Chu Feiyan, after swearing to avenge Zhang Niujiao, inherited Zhang Niujiao's surname "Zhang" and changed his name to Zhang Yan, leading the remnants of the Black Mountain Army.

In fact, many people did not really want to continue fighting the Han army at that time, especially after the Yellow Turban Rebellion was quelled by the court, but unfortunately their families were all in the mountains.

Zhang Yan was surrounded by a group of his former followers who swore to avenge Zhang Niujiao, as well as a group of radical anti-court followers. They were unwilling to continue rebelling against the court for fear of harming their families, and it would be difficult to escape the Taihang Mountains in secret with their families. In addition, Zhang Yan, as their leader, spared no effort in spreading the message that the court would not let these traitors go. In the end, everyone chose to stay and serve Zhang Yan.

Zhang Yan was not satisfied with this. Due to the seclusion of the Taihang Mountains, he led his troops to plunder everywhere over the past year, which made him famous. Small groups of Yellow Turban remnants and mountain bandits continued to choose to join Zhang Yan.

Taking advantage of the Taihang Mountains' vastness and suitability for concealment, they gradually grew to nearly a million men, including the elderly, women, and children, all led by Zhang Yan and known as the "Black Mountain Army." This was something the imperial court had not anticipated.

At that time, Liu Bian was facing the Qiang rebellion in Liangzhou, the Southern Xiongnu rebellion, and Zhang Ju's rebellion. He had no energy to pay attention to the Black Mountain Army's plundering, let alone deploy military forces in Jizhou.

Even so, Liu Bian was still wary of the Black Mountain bandits. He had ordered Zhang Yan, who had replaced Lu Zhi who had returned to the capital, as the governor of Ji Province, to be careful of the Black Mountain bandits.

He simply couldn't understand how the Black Mountain bandits had grown to a scale of a million people right under the nose of Zhang Yan, the governor of Ji Province.
How could those barren lands in the Taihang Mountains possibly be enough to support nearly a million people?

It's impossible to feed 200,000 people!
Therefore, there must have been merchants who risked their lives to sell and transport grain or even iron ore to the mountains. Merchants who were robbed but did not report it to the authorities should be considered suspects. With the cooperation of the local Embroidered Uniform Guard, it would not be difficult to find out the problem.

Although the prefectural and county officials had no authority to mobilize the Embroidered-Robe Envoys in various places, the Embroidered-Robe Envoys had established their own offices in each prefectural capital, and the prefectural and county officials could seek their assistance.

Faced with such a lucrative offer, the Embroidered-Robed Envoy would not refuse. Just cutting off the merchants' transport would have been enough to give the Black Mountain Bandits a hard time. But Zhang Yan, that stupid pig, simply did nothing.

Now, the Black Mountain bandits' activities have even spread along the Taihang Mountains to the territory of Hanoi and Hedong counties. Although it is not serious, it is only a small band of more than a hundred people. Moreover, during the New Year festival, they happened to rob the good families of Sanhe who were returning home as a group, as well as the soldiers of the Central Army.

These people were originally granted land as a reward, and many of their comrades in the army were from the same village or pavilion, so they naturally helped each other out when something happened.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a robbery by over a hundred bandits.

There's no reason not to take credit when it's offered to you. Without even drinking, a group of people grabbed their knives and charged forward.

Although armor was not allowed to be taken home, the standard weapons of the central army were far superior to the scrap metal in the hands of the mountain bandits. They managed to cut off the heads of over a hundred Black Mountain bandits, and each of them received some extra rewards during the New Year.

However, this issue also attracted the attention of the imperial court, and the brothers Liu Dai, the governor of Hedong, and Liu Yao, the governor of Henan, were verbally reprimanded by the emperor.

Despite the undeserved calamity, the brothers' reprimand of the emperor was understandable.

The Black Mountain bandits have already expanded right under our noses. Are we going to wait until they reach Luoyang, the capital of Henan, before we take them seriously?
Therefore, a large-scale anti-bandit operation was launched in the Sanhe area. Generals and officers of the Central Army participated in batches as a practical exercise for their troops. As a result, there were almost no bandits in the Sanhe area, and all the mountain strongholds were burned down.

What did Zhang Yan, the governor of Ji Province, do?
As Xu Jing read out the contents of the memorial, everyone understood the reason for the emperor's wrath.

The Wei Commandery, Changshan Commandery, Zhao State, Julu Commandery, and Zhongshan State of Ji Province were all attacked by the Black Mountain Bandits. More than ten county towns were captured by the sudden attack, and countless valuables, men, and women were looted. Then, they swaggered back to the Taihang Mountains.

Zhang Yan, the governor of Ji Province, led troops from various commanderies and kingdoms in pursuit. Guo Dian, the prefect of Julu Commandery, was a man of military knowledge who had defended Julu Commandery during the Yellow Turban Rebellion and frequently raided the city, causing the Yellow Turban army a great deal of trouble. He strongly advised Zhang Yan not to easily lead his troops into the Taihang Mountains.

Liu Biao, the chancellor of Zhongshan, Wang Lang, the governor of Boling, Zhou Chong, the governor of Qinghe, and Zhang Ze, the governor of Wei, all advised against it. However, Zhang Yan was eager to make a name for himself to avoid punishment. He also looked down on the Black Mountain bandits, who were formed from the defeated Yellow Turban army. He believed that even the elite troops under Zhang Jiao could not defeat the imperial army, let alone the defeated troops who had become outlaws!

Therefore, Zhang Yan did not heed the advice of these five men and ordered his troops to pursue them into the forests of the Taihang Mountains.

Wang Lang and Liu Biao were almost amused by Zhang Yan's behavior. When the emperor personally led the Northern Army's Five Schools to conquer Hebei, he had a group of famous generals whose names were now renowned throughout the land. Defeating these Yellow Turban rebels would have been a piece of cake. Zhang Yan only had troops from the commanderies and kingdoms. Why did he look down on others?
What's more, they were chasing each other into the completely unfamiliar Taihang Mountains!

Although the troops from the prefectures and kingdoms were extremely vigilant during their march, such vigilance was of little use to the Black Mountain bandits who were familiar with the terrain of the Taihang Mountains.

A few arrows were shot here, a surprise attack was launched there, and then another night raid was launched. The continuous guerrilla warfare left Zhang Yan's troops under the command of the prefectures and kingdoms extremely exhausted.

After a scout finally reported that the main force of the Black Mountain bandits had been discovered, Zhang Yan was overjoyed and once again ignored everyone's advice to pursue them, only to be ambushed by Zhang Yan.

Fortunately, with the desperate rescue of Zhang Ze, the governor of Wei Commandery, the group led their troops to break through the encirclement. However, of the 10,000 troops from the five commanderies of Ji Province, fewer than 4,000 escaped from the Taihang Mountains.

With over 60% of his troops lost, Liu Bian looked at the memorial and wanted nothing more than to chop off the head of that idiot Zhang Yan and see what was inside.

It's a shame that Zhang Yan is a descendant of Marquis Liu, Zhang Liang; he has not a single bit of Marquis Liu's wisdom!
If it were merely a robbery, Liu Bian, though angry, would still give Zhang Yan a chance to redeem himself.

The Black Mountain bandits were clearly guerrillas, just like Peng Yue back then. They plundered county towns, and even if they breached a city, they would not enter the city to set up camp. They would just plunder and then retreat. By the time the Han army's reinforcements arrived, they had already disappeared without a trace. Liu Bian was not unaware of the difficulty in dealing with the Black Mountain bandits.

In the past, the Black Mountain bandits would at most rob some women, but would never plunder a large number of men, let alone give the county and state troops a chance to catch up. This was clearly a strategy to lure the enemy, and Zhang Yan had plunged headlong into Zhang Yan's ambush.

However, no matter how angry Liu Bian was, the punishment had to be based on the laws of the imperial court.

Regardless of whether Zhang Yan's crimes warrant execution, his incompetence and the resulting loss of troops and disgrace to the country mean that the governor of Ji Province must be replaced.

Since Zhang Yan can't deal with the Black Mountain bandits, I'll replace him with a ruthless and capable fighter to be the governor of Ji Province!
Liu Bian took a deep breath, stared intently at Gao Wang, and said, "A-Wang, go and summon General Dong Zhongying of the Left. Tell him exactly what I said: the military merits and fiefs he craves have arrived. If he cannot accept them, don't blame me for taking away his existing fiefs as well!"

(5224 words)
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P.S.: I'm so sorry, I drank too much yesterday entertaining clients. It was Moutai, a liquor specially supplied to the Navy, which has a strong aftereffect. I was still quite sober when I called for a designated driver, but I don't even know when we arrived at our destination. I ended up sleeping in the car for several hours before my family found me and carried me home.

I'll make up for it later; I'll add a small update of 1200 words today as compensation.

Please forgive me, dear readers, for adding an extra 1200 words! QAQ~~~
(End of this chapter)